


Shower Thoughts (Please Leave Me Alone)

by Goffy



Category: Cirque du Freak | The Saga of Darren Shan - Darren Shan
Genre: F/M, Nothing Sexual, extremely brief mention of past darren/debbie, genderbent darren, genderbent darren shan, part of a bigger story but i just wanted to post this, some talk about a changing body (female)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28986840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goffy/pseuds/Goffy
Summary: A different take on cirque du freak (mainly: how could the story have progressed if Darren Shan was a girl). (S)he still has the same name as canon Darren. Short one-shot preview into a story that will be posted later, in which Darren struggles with her growing feelings for a certain someone.
Relationships: Steve "Leopard" Leonard/Darren Shan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	Shower Thoughts (Please Leave Me Alone)

Womanhood was something that both terrified and excited her. 

As she stood staring at her blurred face in the fogged up mirror, Darren wondered if she should let her eyes dip down. Even with everything condensed and unclear, she felt too ashamed to even glance at her outline. Never in the past had she been curious of the changes occurring to her body, and she would’ve kept avoiding them too if it hadn’t been for….

Warmth pooled in her cheeks and heart...and somewhere between her chest and abdomen. Immediately, Darren averted her eyes and turned to face the bathtub in an unsuccessful attempt to pull her mind away from the topic. She tread over and stepped under the running shower, while stuffing the emerging thoughts back into the recesses of her mind. Hot water poured over her, running over her tensed muscles and soothing them. A sigh left her lips. For a moment, her head was silent, only focusing on the sounds of water gurgling down her ears.

And then his face flashed in her mind.

Darren groaned, throwing her head back in frustration. 

_Go away._

What the hell was going on? She had never felt this way before, not even for Debbie when they’d “dated” in the past. Whatever this was, all Darren knew was that she was not in favor of it happening. She wouldn’t call it a _crush_ , that was just too silly and childish. She couldn’t call it love, because A) he was her best friend B) _they’d just met after years of no contact._

Steve Leonard. Charming, lovely, gentle...absolute bastard of a man. How dare he make her war with herself like this? Then again…..it wasn’t his fault. Darren exhaled softly, her breath coming out as a blob of condensed air. 

Maybe it was just because she’d never been around a man her own age? Just as Darren had started making sense of her irrational behavior, Evra came to mind and shattered her perfect excuse. But in all honesty, there hadn’t even been a hint of something there. Everything with Evra felt pure and wholesome….but things with Steve, however lovely and innocent, always came with this fiery feeling of her stomach somersaulting and her heart catching fire. 

_Stupid, stupid, stupid!_

He probably didn’t even look at her like that. Darren’s mind reeled back to two nights ago, when she and Steve went down to the grocery store to buy some essentials. There had been a woman in there, one of the most beautiful women Darren had ever seen in her life. She looked as though she was coming from (or going to) a party, and Darren would’ve appreciated her charm-- if she hadn’t noticed Steve take a keen interest in this woman. Darren pretended to ignore the looks the two were passing each other, and it was most insulting to realize that Steve thought of Darren as some clueless girl who wouldn’t take note of what was happening. 

Darren grew angry at the memory, squeezing the shampoo bottle a little too hard and spilling excess product into her hand.

Her anger would only have worsened if the kinder part of her conscience hadn’t interjected with a _But what if he does feel the same?_ Darren entertained the thought, daydreaming about the many conversations and moments that had unfolded between her and Steve in the past few days. Sometimes she’d catch him staring. Sometimes his touch lingered when he handed her something or vice versa. Sometimes he laughed a little too hard at her jokes. 

Now Darren was smiling uncontrollably, cheeks red hot again, hands pressed up against her face. She had forgotten about the shampoo in her hair, and thus forgotten to close her eyes when the shampoo came streaming down her face. It pricked her eyes and they began to burn, all thoughts of Steve flew out the window as Darren rubbed aggressively at her eyes, instinctively turning her face up towards the shower head so the water shot right between her eyelids. 

After the burning faded (which took a while), Darren plopped down into the bathtub, bundled her legs and brought them closer to her chest. She rested her chin atop her knees, arms wrapping around her legs, the water from the shower head dropping onto her head and shattering into tiny beads. Her dark hair curtained her face, like a cloud of gloom that had suddenly descended. 

This is how all things with him ended. Whether it was a good memory, or a bad one, whether it was an interaction that left Darren hopeless, or an interaction that made her heart flutter and blossom and gave her wings…

In the end, she always felt so drained.

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a bigger WIP, as mentioned in tags. This could be a sneak peek thing maybe? I will be deleting this when I draft a proper first chapter. Just an FYI, I headcanon that female vampires hit their purges faster than male vampires, and no this isn't just for this story, I had this headcanon way before I thought of this plot. I haven't thought out how or why exactly, I just think that when a human female is converted, her menstrual cycle gets messed with and there's a major shift in her hormones. Normally, after menopause, human women experience lower hormone levels, but I think it'd be different for vampire women. Something about their nutrition and blood would cause their bodies to mature faster until they hit peak maturity (a normal adult female) and their body stabilizes. From then on they age "normally" (5 years = 1 year).


End file.
